“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”– United States Declaration of Independence
What did Thomas Jefferson and the members of the Second Continental Congress mean by “the pursuit of Happiness?” And why is pursuing happiness so important that Jefferson and his fellow Founding Fathers included it in the Declaration of Independence’s most powerful statement of the new United States’ ideals?
Jeffrey Rosen, the President and CEO of the National Constitution Center and a law professor at George Washington University Law School, joins us to investigate and answer these questions with details from his book, The Pursuit of Happiness: How Classical Writers on Virtue Inspired the Lives of the Founders and Defined America.
About the Show
Ben Franklin’s World is a podcast about early American history.
It is a show for people who love history and for those who want to know more about the historical people and events that have impacted and shaped our present-day world.
Each episode features a conversation with a historian who helps us shed light on important people and events in early American history.
Ben Franklin’s World is a production of Colonial Williamsburg Innovation Studios.
Episode Summary
Jeffery Rosen is the author of The Pursuit of Happiness: How Classical Writers on Virtue Inspired the Lives of the Founders and Defined America. He’s also the president and CEO of the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia and a law professor at George Washington University Law School.
During our investigation of “the pursuit of happiness,” Jeffrey reveals the subject of moral philosophy and the Founding generation’s interest in it; How the ideas of Greek, Roman, and Enlightenment moral philosophers shaped the Founders’ understandings of virtue, happiness, and the characteristics of a virtuous citizenry; And, why the Founders described “the pursuit of happiness” as the chief aim of good government.
What You’ll Discover
• Influence of classical and enlightenment philosophers
• Pursuit of happiness and virtue
• Moral philosophy
• Thomas Jefferson’s reading list
• Education and self-Improvement through reading classical texts
• Unalienable rights
• State of nature
• 13 Virtues identified by Benjamin Franklin
• Ideas about virtue in the Declaration of Independence
• Ideas about virtue in the United States Constitution
• Classical texts and the education of women
• George Washington’s ideas about moral philosophy and virtue
• Ideas on public and private happiness
• The Federalist Papers and their use of reason and virtue
• Representative democracy
• The Founders’ efforts to pursue happiness and lead good, moral lives
Links to People, Places, and Publications
• Jeffery Rosen
• The Pursuit of Happiness: How Classical Writers on Virtue Inspired the Lives of the Founders and Defined America
• National Constitution Center
• Cicero, Tusculan Disputations
• National Constitution Center, Interactive Constitution
• Transcript
Sponsor Links
• Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
• The Power of Place: The Centennial Campaign for Colonial Williamsburg
Complementary Episodes
• Episode 061: The Retirement of George Washington
• Episode 123: Revolutionary Allegiances
• Episode 117: The Life and Ideas of Thomas Jefferson
• Episode 145: Mercy Otis Warren and the American Revolution
• Episode 150: Abigail Adams: Revolutionary Speculator
• Episode 203: Alexander Hamilton
• Episode 231: The Religious Lives of the Adams Family
• Episode 207: Young Benjamin Franklin
• Episode 307: History and the American Revolution
• Episode 377: Phillis Wheatley & the Playwright
Time Warp Question
What if happiness was not written into the Declaration of Independence? How would that have shaped the Early Republic and the personal lives of the people we discussed today?
Questions, Comments, Suggestions
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